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Wow Place #269: Tennessee Valley, Marin County, CA
We weren’t supposed to be here.
There are many beautiful, pristine, authorized hikes to be had in Tennessee Valley. The Miwok …the Coastal …the Old Springs Trail. All of them take you along lovely, wind-swept headlands with lovely views of the scenic, Northern California coast. But there’s this one, unmarked trail that is strictly forbidden. It takes your right along the cliffs, with no safety railings, where a good, swift gust of wind could easily toss you 100 feet crashing down to your death on the sharp rocks of the Pacific Ocean.
Of course, that’s exactly the trail Donica and I decide to take on a clear, sunny, summer morning.
Why would we do such a dumb thing, you might ask? Because this trail is absolutely stunning! Standing at one of its desolate, cliffside viewing spots, you can imagine yourself transported to Hawaii’s Kaanapali coast, perhaps, or the Isle of Skye in Scotland. Green hillsides spread out below you, caressed by the roiling, churning, blue-blue Pacific Ocean. Unlike America’s east coast, where the rolling hills of, say, New Jersey gently transition into the beach, the Northern California coast is steeper and starker. To reach the beach here, you almost always need to climb down from atop a cliff, allowing for some gorgeous, occasionally vertigo-inducing, cliff-top ocean views along the way.
This is the kind of trail where you want to lean forward (supported by your partner), and yell, “I’m King of the World.” Or Queen. Or Duke or Duchess, if you’re not feeling quite so regal.
Only 20 minutes north of San Francisco, Tennessee Valley feels miles away from the hustle and bustle of the big city. In the spring, it’s lush and green, coming alive with lupines, checker-blooms, blued-eye grass and California buttercups. In summer, the grasses turn golden and you can find fennel, lizardtail, sagebrush, and sticky monkey flowers.
Only in San Francisco can you find stunning, untouched nature in the time it takes to watch an episode of Seinfeld.
For all that, for me the pleasures of Tennessee Valley start and end with the cliff views, and the best way to access them is on this insanely-dangerous, strictly-verboten, unmarked trail at the edge of calamity. At times, it’s too windy here to even stand up safely, so I put my hands on the ground for balance. Sometimes, when we’re really right there on the edge, I allow myself to crawl. But my oh my, is it worth it—being able to see for miles and miles, to experience that delicious, weightless feeling of flight!
Sometimes in life, you just have to break the law…at least a little bit. And hopefully survive to tell the tale (and show your pictures).
(A girl I was interested in back in college once told me, “You need to do what you’re most afraid of.” I don’t think she meant skydiving, bungee jumping, or swimming with sharks. I think she was talking about more mundane challenges, like traveling alone in Europe or Asia…starting a business…applying for a job where you’re more than likely to receive a rejection. She was talking daring to kiss a girl on Indian Rock. About sharing your deepest, darkest fears with your partner, or saying “I’m sorry, it was my fault.” Thankfully, you don’t have to sneak onto a forbidden hiking trail to “live on the edge” – at least not every day – but I think my college friend was correct that identifying your fears, facing and then overcoming them, is one of the most rewarding things you can do in life. What fear (that you’ve been avoiding) might you confront and overcome today?)